Equals
by freeWingsflying
Summary: Harribel and Toshiro meet, two years after the Arrancar War.


_My take on Hallibel's and Hitsugaya's meeting, if and when he breaks her out of her jail._

* * *

He comes to save her, the short captain she almost killed in the war two years ago, the short captain that almost killed _her _in the war two years ago.

His hair has grown longer, she sees, and his expression is less chilly, less guarded. Older, more at ease, even though there's no noticeable difference in his height.

They are two very different beings. Her amber eyes, her tan skin, her adult appearance and her height were but the very surface of all differences. Their _reiatsu, _their auras, met, cackled, charged and were driven away from each other, like the two polar opposites of a magnet brought to a forced and abrupt meeting. She is the Shark, the Empress of the Sea. He is the Dragon, destined to freeze all that is hers.

And yet, the recognition and acknowledgement she feels when her eyes meet his is a reminiscing and rare moment; truly, Hallibel has not met another person who'd ever been able to spark this deep a feeling of equality within her. Hallibel knows this reciprocated feeling is something they both cherished and desired. She knows him, more then anyone else does.

Because as different as they are, like ice and like water, no one else comes as close to _equal _as Toshiro Hitsugaya does to Tier Hallibel. They are the same thing, in certain ways; both are masters of a nature that dominates the World, the Sea, and the Heavens. Hallibel likens herself to Toshiro, and she understands that Toshiro feels similarly, too. There is a lament that Hallibel feels in her soul: a lament for all beautiful things in the world; for none that comes as close to perfection as this equality; like all things beautiful, their second meeting, this time round, their second chance at equality is the final one that has to be short-lived to its whole entirety.

Two years ago, he wasn't there yet. Now his command of his ice dragon is wordless and perfection executed. His _reiatsu _shatters her prison and her guards into a billion shards of ice – humanity, or what's left of it; and materiality, returned to its rightful, original form – the Tears of the World, Ice, and Water.

Unlike the other things broken, she alone basks in his glow, in his icy aura. It heals her. The injuries on her body are slowly closing themselves, her own spent _reiatsu_ is slowly recovering, and her whole being, slowly rejuvenating.

He doesn't need to say anything. They don't need to speak human tongue to exchange with each other. He calls her, _Come, _with his reiatsu_, _and Hallibel's reiatsu listens, answers, _Yes, _because they are the same thing after all: both of them, like water, which is like ice, which is like water.

Their mutual understanding is as perfect as the full moon they now stand beneath.

He turns to her without actually turning, and she looks to him without actually looking. Their reiatsu tangles together. Hallibel inhales, and suddenly a deep, profound feeling of familiarity awakens within her – a millennium ago, this was how it had happened. This was what had happened.

A millennium ago, there was a Shark, and there was a Dragon, and there was a fight for Heavens and the Lands.

God; King, Empress; man, woman. And equality.

_They_ never knew love, but if love is the most perfect thing in the World, then this _thing _that she is feeling now, this overbearing emotion, must be nothing less or something more then love. It is perfect.

Beautiful.

Short-lived.

Their swords meet, the Shark and the Dragon, again, after millennium, after two years. Their eyes meet, amber and turquoise, powerful and unyielding, even after millennium, after two years.

The power they unleash shocks the World and rips a tear right across the sky. Heaven weeps, unrelenting, and pours endlessly on the two of them. _Lovers who do not know love. _And yet, still the most perfect love of them all, because you cherish something you do not believe you have more then you would cherish something that you know you possess.

_Equality is this. _

One of them dies tonight. They will meet again, in another two years, or ten, or century, or millennium.

A bond as perfect and equal as this does not end. There is only _and._

* * *

_"Not end, but and." _- Leeteuk, Super Junior

Tonight I feel like reminiscing. My personality has changed, in these two years. Never would I have imagined me implying subtle romance between Hitsugaya and Harribel, for goodness sake. The height difference is discouraging.

I think gods and deities should be like this. Beautiful, perfect, in _love_, and never short of time. There's always the next millennium.


End file.
